Gifts for the Fairies

          
The whole family is home for Christmas. 
We woke this morning to rain but by the time we finished opening
presents and playing a few games it had begun to snow.
Great big beautiful flakes that just called for us to go out for a walk.
 
Two of my daughters hadn’t visited Fairy Lane since it’s creation
so off we went trekking to the woods.

       
But we didn’t go empty handed. 
My oldest daughter made a gift for the fairies – little stockings to keep
their feet toasty.
 
We carefully strung them on a clothesline and hung them from the bark.
 
Two lines were hung over doors, one at each end of Fairy Lane.
The fairies are sure to find them.
         
    We watched for a while but couldn’t spy any of them.
      
 
But our dog spent a lot of time sniffing around.  Could it be she could sense
the fairies were about?
I don’t know but others were looking too because we saw other gifts
left in the woods.
   
          A red heart hung in a tree.

And a little green nutcracker keeping guard by one of the doors.
It’s nice to know that others are thinking of the fairies too.


Goodbye Fairy Lane, we'll visit again soon.

Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

Gingerbread Play

We have been having a lot of fun playing with gingerbread this
past month.
Here are a few activities that included gingerbread.

In the house area we have been baking gingerbread cookies using
these cork cut outs that have magnet on the back of them so they
stick to the pan.

Someone thought they were real and took a bite, oh oh!

The cookies were used for picnics with the reindeer.
Love how he has served each reindeer their own cookie on a plate.
Maybe it was one of the reindeer that took a bite.

 
They were used to match to the cookie cutters.
Trying to figure out which cutter was used to make them.
Also these two children worked on their ‘taking turns’ skill and
watched while each other tried to find the match.


Gingerbread play dough to decorate.


Sticky easel gingerbread house decorating.

Thanks to Deborah Stewart at Teach Preschool for the sticky easel idea.

To make mine I covered the easel with yellow paper then cut out
the house from brown tissue paper and taped it to the yellow.
Finally covered it all with contact paper, sticky side out.

Provide lace, door and window cut outs and lots of shaped, sparkly sequins.

The great thing about a sticky easel is that you can take everything off at the
 end of the day and they can redecorate it again the next day.

And finally we had many gingerbread story books to share and enjoy.

They Have Returned

             
                    Our GingerKids have returned!

It’s true what they say “If you build it they will come.”
                         - they did.
 
We spent the week decorating a gingerbread house in hopes that
our GingerKids would like to move in.

                 
We read through all the letters and post cards we have received
from around the world.  
 
Plus a couple of new ones from Laurie and Donna.

  
                And we kept on decorating.

        
Then this morning, the last day of school before Christmas break,
there they were tucked inside their new home. 
 
    
   Including one final letter full of Christmas wishes.

       
       We're happy to see them back too.

It’s been a grand adventure learning about the world around us. 
Thank you for sharing a little part of your world with us.

Santa Toque for Snack

   
Yes, I am Canadian and we call a warm winter hat a ‘toque’.
           
This toque-to-eat is made with a rice cracker, banana slice,
strawberry and a piece of cheese string.

 
 
The tricky part was balancing the cheese ‘pom pom’ on top of
the strawberry. 
         
It worked best to take a bite out of the strawberry first then add
the cheese. 
Either way the Santa toque didn’t stay around very long.

Math at the Art Table

   
I saw this Christmas card idea over at whatever… and loved it.

Lately I’ve noticed a lot more children picking up scissors
and snipping on anything they can get their hands on;
paper, ribbon, pipe cleaners, anything.

So I thought this would be a perfect art activity for their interest
and the time of the year.

But I didn’t realize how much math could work into it
until I watched this young man work on his card.
     
First he’s trying to decide how long the strip should be for
the base of his tree.
     
He decides to measure the gold paper to the width of the card
then cut.
     
And continued to measure and cut to build his tree.
      
Stopping briefly to cut a much smaller piece to use as the
‘stem’ of the tree.
 
Once he worked to the top of his tree he started to decorate it using precut
stickers and the shaped hole punches to make snowflakes and stars.
       
This art project included working on measuring, sizing and sequencing.
As well as discussion of the shapes he used.

Then there were children that just enjoyed the cutting.